Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to the selection of a relay for device-to-device (D2D) communication.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from the base station to the UEs) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from the UEs to the base station). A wireless multiple-access communication system may also, or alternatively, support device-to-device (D2D) communication between communication devices (e.g., between UEs). D2D communications may involve wireless communications directly between communication devices (e.g., directly between UEs, without the communications passing through one or more base stations). However, D2D communications may sometimes be relayed through one or more intermediary communication devices (e.g., through one or more relays).
A relay may take the form of a dedicated relay device or be part of another device. For example, UE may function as a relay, and may relay D2D communications between other UEs. In some cases, multiple candidate relays may be available between two endpoint devices, but not all relay candidates may provide the same advantages, and some relay candidates may not provide any advantage. There may be no way for the endpoint devices to identify which of the candidate relays would provide the best service between the two endpoint devices, and the selection of a relay device may be unnecessarily arbitrary.